Saskatchewan is celebrating the addition of more than a dozen new hospital beds at Saskatoon’s City Hospital, but the provincial government is delaying the date when all of its promised beds will be available.
The province’s health ministry says 20 acute-care beds have been added, bringing the total number of new general medicine care beds at City Hospital to 60.
Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill says the remaining 49 promised acute-care beds at the hospital will not be made available by the end of this year as planned due to “construction challenges” at both the hospital and at Market Mall, a shopping centre where some outpatient and continuing care services will relocate to make way for the remaining beds.
“I think it has also given us the opportunity to ensure that when beds and services do come online, they’re staffed and they are ready to go for patients on day one,” Cockrill told reporters at a press conference on the bed expansion Tuesday.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) says the construction company tasked with renovating Market Mall has wrapped up the work, with the department receiving keys to the spaces this week.
“Now we’re preparing the space to be able to move over the coming weeks through November,” said Derek Miller, SHA’s chief operating officer.
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Miller adds that the geriatric evaluation management unit on Saskatoon City Hospital’s seventh floor, along with the surgical pre-assessment clinic on the fourth floor, will be moved to Market Mall over the next month, making space for the new beds and a pre-assessment clinic.
The initiative is part of a $15 million investment by the Government of Saskatchewan in March 2025 to add 109 acute-care beds at Saskatoon City Hospital to address capacity pressures in the province, with the first 40 beds available at the hospital last November.
The province says it has also completed the expansion of acute-care units at Saskatoon’s two other hospitals, as laid out in its health care plan announced earlier this year. This includes 36 additional inpatient beds at Royal University Hospital (RUH) and 24 acute inpatient beds at St. Paul’s Hospital.
The province says it has hired all required positions for the new beds added to Saskatoon City Hospital and is still looking to fill 39 positions between RUH and St. Paul’s Hospital.
Opposition questions expansion efficacy
Cockrill said several times Tuesday that the province is moving “expeditiously” to add new beds to address capacity pressures. But the Opposition NDP is pushing back, pointing to a string of incidents in recent months where patients and loved ones recounted receiving treatment in hallways or after hours-long delays.
“The minister thinks that beds treat people and keeps forgetting that staff treat people,” said Keith Jorgenson, associate health critic for the NDP, adding that staffing retention is a major issue within the province’s health-care system.
Jorgenson also pointed to the ongoing negotiations between Saskatchewan and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 5430, representing more than 14,000 health-care workers in the province. The local voted 99 per cent in favour of job action September.
Edmonton resident Neal Ferniuk stood with the NDP Tuesday calling for change after he said his 94-year-old mother with dementia received care in the hallway of RUH for three days after falling and breaking her collarbone in late September.
“It was a year ago that my mom went through this similar thing. It sounds like nothing’s changed. So why is that?” Ferniuk said.
The SHA expects that adding new beds over the coming months will lead to improvements in patients receiving more timely access to services, said Miller, adding that the health authority monitors “very closely” the number of patients who wait for services and how long they are waiting.
The health authority was unable to provide Global News with specific wait-time numbers at Saskatoon City Hospital before and after adding the 60 new acute-care beds over the past 12 months.